Jane Edwards
The U.S. subsidiary of Israel-based Rafael Advanced Defense Systems received a facility clearance from the Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency in February, Defense News reported Wednesday.
Bethesda, Maryland-based Rafael Systems Global Sustainment started the application process for the clearance in April 2020 and Joseph Anderson, president and CEO of RSGS, said securing the approval provides the company an opportunity to work on classified programs.
“It now gives Rafael, as a foreign company, via their American subsidiary, a means to work classified programs within Rafael without having to rely on a joint venture or some other partnership or business agreement,” he told the publication in a Monday interview.
With the facility clearance, Anderson said the company hopes to expand its missile, counter-unmanned aircraft systems, artificial intelligence and machine learning, networking, force protection, sensing, situational awareness, base and air defense, lethality and communications portfolios.
“Along the modernization priorities for the Army, along with the joint-counter UAS office, just think of the programs that are aligned with those different offices and how that changes the ability to work in those portfolios where before we could not,” he noted.
